Iulia-Sabina Joja is project director of MEI’s Afghanistan Watch, a senior fellow for the Frontier Europe Initiative, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. lulia’s research and teachings focus primarily on European and Black Sea security.

Prior to this, Iulia served as an adviser to the Romanian President and as a deputy project manager at NATO Allied Command Transformation in Virginia. She has worked with the Romanian delegation to the United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. lulia was also a visiting scholar at the Center of Military History and Social Sciences of the German Armed Forces in Potsdam/Berlin and a DAAD post-doctoral fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Iulia’s PhD thesis on Romania’s strategic culture was published by Columbia University Press in 2019.

Education
PhD in Strategic Studies, National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest
MA in International Conflict Studies, King’s College London
BA in Political Science and International Relations, Freie Universität, Berlin

Regions of expertise 
Europe, Black Sea countries

Issues of expertise
Black Sea security defense, transatlantic security and defense, strategic cultures, foreign policy analysis

Languages 
English, Romanian